Jimmy Savile's biographer - I'm devastated and I feel betrayed

The journalist who wrote Jimmy Savile's authorised biography has written about being betrayed by the man she regarded as a close friend.

Alison Bellamy, whose book How's about that, then? was published in June this year, has been devastated by the allegations that he abused underage children.

When they first emerged a month ago, she writes in her paper, the Yorkshire Evening Post, "I felt a pang of sickness in my stomach."

Bellamy's story is a timely lesson in the difficulties everyone faced - journalists, police officers, BBC co-workers and hospital staff - when confronting him about the rumours of his sexual predilection.

She heard the rumours about his fondness for young girls (who didn't?) and says: "Like almost everyone who knew him, I never believed them. Or maybe I did not want to believe them."

During a series of interviews in 2006 with Savile she asked him about the rumours and admits accepting his dissembling replies.

She writes: "He was dismissive, as if what I was saying was ridiculous. But he was always manipulative with the press and, even though he insisted he would always answer any question thrown at him, he would often change the subject or talk nonsense."

Bellamy relates how she became friendly with Savile in the late 1990s after covering his charity work for the Yorkshire Evening Post - based in Savile's home town of Leeds - and went on to write many stories in which he was involved:

"He liked to keep the positive media coverage bubbling. Even at the age of 84, he would ring me and announce a publicity stunt, which he had created from thin air. I was his 'good news girl' giving him the positive press stories on which he thrived."

Bellamy's heartfelt coming-to-terms with a fallen hero is one among many. From a very different perspective, Anthony Barnett has written a considered piece on the subject that's worth reading.